Well i had my first Karaoke gig last night, and it was a baptism of fire to say the least. I was expecting a slow night with people getting up towards the end with a bit of dutch courage, however a busload of american students arrived while I was setting up, I had over 10 requests before I even turned the power on. The quality of singing was pretty abysmal but they had a great laugh which is all that matters, I did have a few good singers but nobody seemed to care, the crowd singing along almost drowned out the singers in any case. To be honest I wasn't prepared for how difficult it is to manage rotations and singers etc. Despite me telling them, many didn't seem to realise or care that you had to hold the mic to your mouth for noise to come out the other end

Locals joined the fun and I had more requests than I could handle. One hugely frustrating thing was that VDJ doesn't find all my tracks for some reason, I had to manually search for many of them using the reference numbers, no idea why. Could it be because they are in subfolders I wonder?? Some of the punters became really obnoxious and annoying when they realised how far down the list they were, pestering me constantly to move them up, but I managed to keep my cool. The manager was thrilled with how it went and wants to do two nights a week for the summer. I suppose I am unlikely to catch that type of break again, only for those students it would have been a very different night, however a very positive beginning to a new venture.

welcome to the world of being a karaoke host !

abuse is part and parcel and the word you will here most often is "next "

a few little tips

when it gets really busy and you can see its busy announce the rotation emphasis on the after or you'll get them cueing up when its not there turn. over the mic," next up we have singer A and after them its singer b then singer c ..wow we have a lot of singers tonight thanks for your patience but we will get around to all of you.

when it gets really busy dont worry about music in between just get em up! singers will love you for it . keep the rotation strict dont let people bully you or you will lose the respect of the regulars.

you will get ..but i am going in five minutes can i sing next .."my job is to make you stay in the pub if your going i cant get you up sorry there are people in the queue before you."

from what i know virtual dj searches for id tags , a lot of karaoke files are not id tagged but you can search for filename if the tracks have been labelled i believe you just alter the search path to look for file names.

I bet the night wizzed along and it was finishing time before you knew it ..good karaoke nights for me can seem like 20 minutes bad ones with no singers can seem like years!

I use MTU hoster it has proper singer rotation and it remembers what singers sang and in what key it is dedicated karaoke software not dj software with a plugin . it does not look sophisticated but it works for its job.

if you start doing this a lot it maybe worthwhile looking into dedicated software and a dedicated pc for just karaoke with vdj as a backup.

and finally ...well done!!!
a lot of DJ's never do a second karaoke night as the stress and hassle seem to get to them.

welcome to the KJ club

Congrats! First gig, and secured a summer residency!

Nice one!

Cheers lads, I found it seriously stressful tbh but enjoyable also, the night flew and I would much prefer to be doing busy nights, quieter ones would drag on forever I am sure. Will certainly be sticking with it, even as an add-on for parties it seems there is a market for it, one guy rang for a 21st enquiry last week and when he heard I did karaoke he was delighted, booked it on the spot. VDJ seemed to work fine except for the search difficulties, will modify the search function, and will bear in mind that a dedicated program may be the way to go. I am still spreading the word about my new service, several locals that I know came up to me and were amazed to see me doing Karaoke, hopefully word will spread and business will grow. Problem with the summer residency is that he wants to do it during the week, it's a late bar which stays open until 2am, I will be running into difficulties trying to juggle that with a full-time job, two kids and weekend gigs. My hours at work are flexible so I can take mornings after gigs off, however it is bound to take it's toll. Financially my partner will be glad of the extra cash coming in, but money isn't everything as we know, a wonderful dilemma to have however

AMEN!!! I wish more KJs thought like this Rob. I do it, and I despair when I see hosts that son't.

Had my second Karaoke gig tonight in a different venue, late booking but an absolute cracker again, had singers up all night and they loved it, piano man was the best song of the night. Worryingly Virtual DJ froze twice during the gig, the laptop didn't crash at all, it was the program itself, had to open the task manager to shut it down and restart it, anybody come across this before? I just banged on a CD so nobody really noticed, but if this becomes a regular occurance I will have to rethink my set-uo. It happened when I was using the rotation manager plug in, so afterwards I just mixed them like I'd mix MP3's and had no problem for the rest of the night. This venue gets lots of 21st and parties and once gain the owner (who I know well) was delighted and said he will pass on my details and recommend me to everybody booking a party, happy days.

I agree also. In fact I never play music unless I have no requests in. How I keep it going is I record the singer/s then instantly play it back as they leave the stage I then talk over it to get the next singer/s up then fade it into next Karaoke track. I find this works very well and you get a great reaction from punters also.

Glad you had a good time.

Nik

Nice!
What programme do you use to record your singers?
How do you configure the mic signal to your recording source?
Mendoza.

I did this years ago and it was ok for a while but became a bit old hat quickly and the initial good reaction from crowds soon turned into cringes and we have just heard that
i used the second outputs from my mixer (booth) to a minidisc recorder easy to do no software and reliable

Never had that maybe you were doing it wrong . oh and erm Peace Rob


I use Otsav as play in and a Studiomaster 1U rack amp for the mics this has a delay unit built in I also have a loop return on my mixer patched to a multi FX unit so mix in a little reverb with the delay. I take a feed out from the master on the mixer and route it back into the laptop. Via my Edirol UA 101 sound card. I then record it on Audition and play it back through another fader on my mixer via the Edirol on channel 5 & 6.

Channel 1&2 is for Front of House 3&4 for monitoring 5&6 for audition output.

I have also burned them to disc and made a competition of it the winner gets the disc.

Sounds complicated but once sorted it is easy to do and instant. I also used this to record a father of the bride who sang the first dance for his daughter. I edited it mastered it on PC and burned it to a CDR for them to keep.

Love doing stuff like this it makes me more than just a DJ/KJ I feel.

Nik

Great idea for the father of the bride ..nice touch ,knowing me if i had done that someone would have shopped me for copyright and distribution infringements and the PRS would have developed a whole new licence to get there blood ! ... i found for a residency week in week out sometimes twice a week at the same venue when the singers sing the same songs , the playback of the song they just sang became tiresome for everyone.

At one off functions or fortnightly gigs this can work, i use this at competitions now but never week in week out to keep it as a fresh tool.

Personally i am not afraid of silence..
i know lots of DJ's and Kj's that brick it when it goes quiet.
They feel the need to play something or chat , karaoke singers don't give a stuff and the silence is there cue to get to the stage ASAP .

how many of you have played a song or the previous person singing and called the next singer up and even though they are there they keep chatting and take there time coming up?

I found playing the previous singer and calling the next singer confused some singers up next as they were not paying attention and thought the previous singer was still on stage ..remember i am talking about pubs where most people are out to get hammered not functions where they are sat at neat tables , i am talking about rammed bars ..silence and then shouting there name gets there attention and they look a bit inconsiderate if they take there time getting up so guess what they dont , they get to the stage much faster.

Me.. I never wanted to be more than a DJ/ or KJ just the best DJ/KJ i can be Peace.

Nothing wrong with a bit of quiet. Use it to good effect to get peoples attention.
Far better (IMO) of non-stop music where the start of the next singer is hard to work out.

Also agree with the playback of the last singer - good as a spot effect, but not all the time.

Jas

I find your point interesting.

Isn't going the extra mile and adding value to the service you provide doing this then? Peace

Nik

In my own opinion ,I am no bigger (apart from my waste line ) than the title DJ/KJ I do not see my self as better or more important than the title... just dedicated and passionate at what i do and i am always eager to learn. But this is now off the original topic so i will leave this discussion here and will gladly participate in another thread on the subject... but i don't wish to detract from the very pleasing success of DJMickeyk and his winning further work from his first karaoke gig.

love and fluffy bunnies

Rob

Let's all just increase the peace!!!

Cheers rob, secured the residency two nights a week (Tues and Wed) and going well, lots of interest in the service for weekend parties etc too so all good Best investment I made in years and i'd like to thank yourself and others who offered me advice before I started in another thread.

I think your passion is shared by most if not all on here. That is why we are here to improve after all.

I agree As said above well done mark. If nothing else it shows there are many right ways to do a good Karaoke night.

Nik